Zach Duke signed a three-year/$15 million contract with the White Sox yesterday based on his insane/improbable emergence as a relief ace with the Brewers last year. Neil Weinberg at Beyond the Box Score was apparently fascinated by Duke’s breakout season last year and so he takes a look today at the value of one good year vs. a career of mediocrity.
It’s obviously only one season’s worth of innings from a reliever, but it’s about 60 fantastic innings not heavily distorted by a platoon. He faced a roughly equal number of righties and lefties and had pretty similar results. I’m not going to sit here and argue that the thousand innings that came before should get thrown out or that he’s a true talent relief ace based on one year of data, but he’s demonstrated the ability to perform at a high level with no BABIP luck, HR/FB% magic, or really well targeted appearances against weak lefties. He legitimately pitched well for those 60 innings.
Having watched Zach Duke pitch so much from 2005-2010, I find this all fascinating and a little unbelievable. Good for you, Zach Duke!
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